U.S. athlete trapped in porta potty mishap gets toilet paper sponsorship

SAINT-DENIS, France – It's been a strange and successful summer for Kendall Ellis, the US 400m champion.

Track and field fans may remember Ellis for getting stuck in a portable toilet at the US National Team Qualifiers. He was in a semi-panic and knocked on the door for 10 minutes to call someone for help. He was worried that his hopes of appearing in the Olympics were disappearing.

Finally help arrived.

From the mobile toilet to the Olympics and then to the advertising contract!

Ellis qualified for the Olympics after winning the semifinals and finals of the qualifiers. But his interesting adventures do not end there.

Shortly after that, he managed to sign an advertising contract with the toilet paper manufacturing company "Charmin".

"It was a perfect fit," Ellis said.

Maybe before we take a negative view of these commercials, we should consider the hardships of making a living in a field like athletics.

Ellis is 28 years old and operates in a world where only the very top earn millions of dollars. According to a 2023 survey conducted by the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, 82 percent of the 475 athletes surveyed earned less than $100,000 a year.

Before the mobile toilet incident, Ellis' best hope of making the US national team was his stellar record as a relay runner. Three years ago in Tokyo, she helped the women's 4 x 400m team to a gold medal and the medley relay team to a bronze medal.

This time, in addition to the individual 400 meters, she will also try to win a medal in the women's 4 x 400 meters. But either way, he has his advertising deal to back him up.

"It was terrible," Ellis said of his state of mind at the time. I don't like small spaces. Getting stuck in them is one of my biggest fears. Elevators, portable toilets, water slides!”

He says he was stuck in that mobile toilet for "about 10 minutes" and he didn't have his mobile phone with him.

Ellis continued: "Until the fifth minute, I didn't panic. "Then I thought to myself, 'Well, I have to call for help.' As embarrassing as it was to scream for help inside a portable toilet, I had to do it."

Fortunately, one of the kind workers at the training ground heard the knocking and calls for help and came to open the door.

What happened next was a classic example of "climbing from a hole to a well".

Ellis ran a personal best of 49.81 seconds in the semifinals and then improved on that in the final with a stunning time of 49.46 seconds.

Ellis said of his thoughts as he pounded on the mobile toilet door: "I thought to myself, 'It's okay, something wonderful is going to happen.' eat."

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